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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22839256">breathing like i never did</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrites/pseuds/pyrites'>pyrites</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(Both of them!), Bisexual Character, Butch Georgie, Character Study, Comfort, Coming Out, F/F, F/M, Femme Melanie, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Gender Identity, Jewish Georgie Barker, Jewish Jon, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Jon Sims, Trans Female Character, Trans Georgie Barker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 15:15:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,530</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22839256</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrites/pseuds/pyrites</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Georgie thought she knew what yearning was. It turns out all she knew were loose synonyms, the basic dictionary definition. Love has never been a foreign language. It’s not as if she’s been without. She’s been sure of what all of these things are, but now it’s like—</i><br/> <br/><i>It’s like a hammer has been brought down on her heart and cracked it wide open.</i></p><p>Or, Georgie Barker discovers the butch identity, and where she fits into it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Georgie Barker &amp; Jonathan Sims, Georgie Barker/Jonathan Sims, Georgie Barker/Melanie King</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>169</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>492</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>GerryTitan verse</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. sun</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>EDIT (4/10/21) — i've made some important edits here! some things hit different <a href="https://gerrydelano.tumblr.com/post/647949673711206401/">now that i portray georgie as trans (tma)</a>, which adds another layer to her butch discovery. i also added a bit more acknowledgment of her mental health during university, which i think helps tighten it up! huge shoutout to seraf @<a href="http://transmikecrew.tumblr.com/">transmikecrew</a> for the inspiration and push to develop my georgie HC!</p><p>+ here's the <a href="https://gerrydelano.tumblr.com/post/190540164675/">meta post on tumblr</a> that kicked off the butch georgie headcanon<br/>+ the <a href="https://gerrydelano.tumblr.com/post/190591867920/">companion drabble</a> that i expanded into this fic here!</p><p>suggested listening: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpOyl4eNqJI">breathing by hamzaa</a></p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>───── ⋅☀⋅ ─────</p><p> </p><p>The clothes in her closet disgust her a little. They’re in perfectly good condition, they’ve received plenty of offhanded compliments. There’s nothing about them that should be <em> disgusting </em>to her. Georgie doesn’t quite know what it is that’s so wrong about them, but there are only a few things she can stand to wear nowadays and it leaves her doing laundry far more often than if she actually utilized the full scope of everything she owned.</p><p> </p><p>She doesn’t want to wear a silk blouse to her next interview. She doesn’t think a pencil skirt will get her hired and if that’s really the deciding factor, well, maybe she doesn’t want the job. She hasn’t touched a pair of high heels since her graduation from secondary school. The same pair is sitting in a box on the floor of the closet with everything else she keeps shutting the door on. She could never quite make herself a metronome, a model, a piece of moving music. Her walk had never been song and dance. Just pinched and slipped a bit on a freshly waxed floor and led her to nearly busting her teeth climbing up onto the stage.</p><p> </p><p>It hadn’t felt worth it, standing on that stage with her ankles out like that under the graduation gown. Felt unstable, she remembers. Like everyone was just looking at her ankles and not her achievement. Waiting for them to give out or something. For her to go full Bambi on ice and fall apart right there because these weren’t actually her legs. She hadn’t given them the satisfaction — <em> them </em> being the stupid little monsters in her brain telling her that she was being judged, not the audience who she knows only wanted to get out of there as much as she did. She’d made it off the other end of the stage and back to her chair, and waited for the moment she was allowed to walk barefoot off the premises and to her family, her friends in the grass out front. Better to be made fun of for being shorter than all of them than to be at eye level and just feel unreal.</p><p> </p><p>But if not this, then what? It’s not like the point of a job interview is to look comfortable anyway. It’s to make yourself look professional, marketable. You’re not even supposed to be memorable, nothing bright or flashy or unique. The only thing she is supposed to <em> look like </em> is a woman. An acceptable woman. A <em> real </em>one.</p><p> </p><p>It’s all very dismal, really. Georgie runs her fingers down her only purple blouse and wonders just how much of the world will only take her seriously if she sacrifices something for it. She ponders a way out and comes up short. </p><p> </p><p>The closet shuts with a muffled sound, so stuffed full of unusable, unwanted things. It takes Georgie’s full weight against the door to coax the knob into clicking with the promise of staying put.</p><p> </p><p>───── ⋅☀⋅ ─────</p><p> </p><p>It isn’t quite so unusable anymore when Jon comes into the picture. Rather, when Georgie realizes that Jon likes playing with the sleeve of the scarlet cardigan that she only wears when there’s a line in the laundry room and she’s out of hoodies. It’s a bit frumpy for her, bit mature. It’s something she could better see her gran wearing at Rosh Hashanah dinner. Come to think of it, it probably was her gran’s first. She doesn’t remember when it became hers, or really why. Maybe when she first became Georgina.</p><p> </p><p>There are little gold beads along the hem where the buttons lie. She watches Jon’s fingertips fiddle with them over her stomach while they stack together on the couch. He doesn’t say anything about it, but she commits it to memory.</p><p> </p><p>This isn’t the first time. She’s caught him looking strangely wistful before as she does her ironing, rubbing his thumbs along the collar of a cotton jumper that he’s been instructed to put on a hanger for her. She doesn’t mind most of her jumpers, but some of them are a bit tight in the bust. The emphasis it puts there bothers her enough to leave them on the hangers most days, which only makes her feel sorry for her chest and all the work she’d done to develop it. Not <em> regret, </em> but — condolences.</p><p> </p><p>The idea that any part of becoming Georgina could have been for nothing just makes her ignore it harder. She’s running out of clothes that don’t make her <em> think. </em></p><p> </p><p>The one Jon is holding when she finally speaks up was one she’d worn to the cinema with him a few days prior, creme-coloured and knit with knotted patterns up and down the front. He doesn’t even seem to be thinking of anything in particular. Just touching. Keeping to himself.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you want that?”</p><p> </p><p>Jon jolts where he sits like she’s just thrown ice water into his lap. “What?”</p><p> </p><p>Georgie nods to the jumper. It’s still clutched in his hands, now pulled protectively to his chest. “You should try it on if you like it. I won’t miss it much.”</p><p> </p><p>The way Jon’s brow knits almost makes her think she might have made a mistake. Not in her observations — no, those have been thoroughly confirmed — but in her choosing to voice them. His arms jerk a bit as he seems to remember all at once what he’s holding, and he casts the jumper away from him like she’d lit it on fire. Georgie cocks a brow.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, there’s no need to be so dramatic.”</p><p> </p><p>“I hardly know what you mean,” Jon says quickly. “I-I couldn’t possibly—”</p><p> </p><p>“You really could.” Georgie shrugs. “It’s just a jumper.”</p><p> </p><p>Jon keeps his face turned away as if he really stands any chance. “...But, um. Don’t you think it’s a bit, um. Fem—”</p><p> </p><p>“Feminine? Yeah.” She laughs, halfway mirthless. “That’s why I think you should try it on.”</p><p> </p><p>Now the way Jon looks at her is almost as if he’s trying to force himself to look offended. Appalled. Aghast. Hurt. Something that definitely isn’t there, rather drowned out by something that Georgie thinks looks a lot more like hope. Better stoke that, then. She leans both of her hands on the ironing board and gives a shrug just shy of theatrical, gazing off towards a potted plant until it feels safe to look him in the eyes again.</p><p> </p><p>“It’d look better on you than me, that’s for sure.”</p><p> </p><p>Jon leaves that evening with two jumpers, the beaded scarlet cardigan <em> (“Wasn’t this your grandmother’s?” “It’s fine, it’s not like she’s dead or anything.” “Ah.”) </em> and having learned just as much about Georgie as she has about him. Which is to say, just enough.</p><p> </p><p>───── ⋅☀⋅ ─────</p><p> </p><p>Georgie first sees Leo Sutcliffe in an elective course on satirical writing. She sits just one row ahead and she shrugs off a leather jacket onto the back of her chair to reveal the strongest looking shoulders that Georgie has ever seen through the back of a woman’s t-shirt. Must spend a lot of time at the gym. She leans heavily into the bend where her desk is welded to the chair, sleeve of dark tattoos wrapped tightly all the way to the wrist. Even from back here, Georgie can see that she keeps her knees far apart. One of them bounces as she drums her fingers against the fabric of her loose jeans, in time with some song that no one else in the room seems to comprehend. </p><p> </p><p>Georgie catches her own knee bouncing to the same rhythm before class lets out. She watches Leo get up from her desk in one smooth motion, swinging her jacket back on and hefting her bag onto one shoulder without ever once halting her stride to readjust.</p><p> </p><p>She smiles at Georgie as she passes. A quick, uneven flash of teeth that makes Georgie’s heart open up like a trapdoor in her chest. Something comes pouring out of it and settles in her stomach like candle wax.</p><p> </p><p>There was a musicality in Leo’s heavy-boot footsteps. It sings in Georgie’s ears as she walks herself home.</p><p> </p><p>Before the start of the next class, she taps one of those strong shoulders with a pen, bold as brass. Leo’s face does something extraordinary when she says that her name is<em> Georgie, </em> a streak of dayfire dancing loudly in her eyes. Georgie wishes she knew herself well enough to confidently call it recognition. For now, she settles for calling it handsome.</p><p> </p><p>“I love it,” Leo says, and lowers her voice as she leans over the back of her seat. “Y’know, Leo’s short for Eleanor. But you understand.”</p><p> </p><p>Georgina was her great-aunt first. Even after she died, people called her house <em> Georgina’s house, </em> because no matter who moved in next, it was her that kept the doors propped open. Before Georgie was anyone at all, she would walk there in the summer to spend the afternoon sitting on the cool kitchen counter, juicing lemons into pitchers with too much sugar. She poured it into glasses for the neighbors who walked in to return clean sets of Tupperware, to drop off an extra one of their own, to just say hello. <em> Georgina </em> made every room feel warm. Even the ones where only her photograph remains. Georgie is short for Georgina, in being something just short <em> of </em>her.</p><p> </p><p>So, Georgie understands. There is something else here that she wants, desperately, to understand more.</p><p> </p><p>There is no fear left in her to stop her from asking questions. Nothing to stop her from asking if they could start doing their homework for this class together. Nothing to stop her from admiring the way Leo moves and the way she sits and the way she cuts her hair and the way she presses her knuckles together when she’s telling a story that makes her smile with all the fierce warmth of the sun in July. The way she takes up space and doesn’t apologize for it. The way her laughter fills a room. The way she pats Georgie’s cheek firm enough for it to feel almost like a slap, and for <em> that </em> feel like the kindest touch imaginable. Something solid. Something real, like if it <em> were </em> intended as a slap, Georgie would be able to take it. Deliver one back. Carry on a volley of gentle ungentle. Pass it on.</p><p> </p><p>There is no fear left in her to stop Georgie from wanting to make other people feel the way Leo makes her feel. That deep comfort in her heart, that giddy jump and stutter of <em> can we be the same? Do you really see yourself in me? </em></p><p> </p><p>When Leo slings her arm around her shoulders and gives her a good shake as they walk to their cars after a late dinner, Georgie doesn’t buckle under her weight. She shakes her right back, their fists knotted in the backs of each other’s jackets until they let go at the same time, together.</p><p> </p><p>───── ⋅☀⋅ ─────</p><p> </p><p>For a fully grown adult, Jon is pretty scrawny. Georgie can wrap her whole hand around his wrist, it feels like, and she swears he eats. She eats with him when she’s not eating with Leo, so she’s more or less convinced he’s just got a metabolism from some sort of mirror dimension.</p><p> </p><p>This means that it’s hard for her to borrow his clothes. When he borrows hers he’s all but swimming in them, but they work out ways to tie decorative knots at the hem of certain shirts. The waist of the one long skirt that Georgie had bought under the assumption that she might like wearing skirts better if they reached all the way to her ankles. She’d been wrong, of course, but if any good came of it, it was learning that Jon prefers skirts like that for the exact same reason.</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t wear it to classes or anything. Just when they’re lounging about in privacy, where no one other than Georgie can see. She watches the way he tucks his legs up onto the couch and drapes the flowing fabric around him like he’s posing for a Renaissance painter, entirely unable to keep a straight face. The first time he’d caught her smiling, he’d drawn his knees up defensively and hunched forward at the shoulders, angling his book up to hide behind it. By now he just smiles back and returns to his reading.</p><p> </p><p>The most that Georgie can steal from Jon on a regular basis is his one oversized jacket, a few various accessories. She’s been wearing his watch for the better part of the last month, given flippantly. It just makes his wrist look that much skinnier, but it sits nicely around hers. His button-ups don’t close around her chest, but last year he’d ordered a few that turned out two sizes too big and she can just about get her arms into them. Georgie is long past thinking that she likes them just because they belong to Jon; she knows by now that there’s another reason behind it.</p><p> </p><p>Jon’s figured it out, too. She looks up from her homework to watch him bustle around the kitchen one day and catches the way his shirt stops too low over his thighs. At first, she thinks it’s a dress considering the leggings underneath, but no. Just an inappropriately sized button-up. She can’t help snorting at the complete loss of his entire ass to the fall of loose fabric. He does that little twitchy sniff he always does when he’s trying to tell you that he’s going out of his way to ignore you, which kind of defeats the purpose but gets a message across nonetheless.</p><p> </p><p>She lets it go until he wears it in front of her again, tucked in this time and looking for all the world like some costume from his latest period drama production. The sleeves rolled up to his elbows still fall a bit down his arms.</p><p> </p><p>“I know what you’re up to,” she pipes up. “Subtlety eludes you <em> badly, </em> Sims.”</p><p> </p><p>Jon barks a sharp laugh. “Oh, I’m <em>Sims</em> now? What am I, your rugby mate?”</p><p> </p><p>“You wouldn’t survive rugby. Surprisingly elephant-relevant.”</p><p> </p><p>“…Elephant-r—?”</p><p> </p><p><em>“The elephant in the room, </em> Jon. Fess up.”</p><p> </p><p>Jon looks down at himself in such deeply sarcastic scrutiny that she almost wants to pop him in the shoulder for it. “Suppose you mean the shirt, then.”</p><p> </p><p>“That circus tent you’ve been parading around in?” She laughs. “Yeah.”</p><p> </p><p>Jon hisses, pulling it outward by the hem to sulk down at it. “Well, that was uncalled for. I liked the colour.”</p><p> </p><p>It’s forest green. Georgie’s favourite. She could just <em> kiss </em> him for this, but that would require breaking character. Instead, she raises a hand to snap her fingers at him, <em> chop-chop, </em> eyes rolling.</p><p> </p><p>“Give it here, then.”</p><p> </p><p>She about rolls off the couch with laughter when Jon pulls it over his head only to reveal that he’s been wearing a proper shirt of his own underneath it. Not even a plain undershirt, but the nice one with horizontal stripes he’d taken off her hands three weeks ago. There are tears in the corners of her eyes when he gives her shoulder a shove to sit her back up. He’s trying to look stern, but his stubborn mouth is wobbling in protest of a smile.</p><p> </p><p>Georgie takes the shirt from him. Instead of pulling off her hoodie to try it on, she pulls him onto her lap by the waist. He relents and perches on her knees, his arms a loose cage around her head as she rests forward against his chest.</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you.” She sighs, and then pinches him. “But the <em> drama.” </em></p><p> </p><p>He drops a kiss on the crown of her head, undeterred. “Whatever works, Georgie. Whatever works.”</p><p> </p><p>───── ⋅☀⋅ ─────</p><p> </p><p>Leo gifts her with her copy of <em> Stone Butch Blues </em> and tells her to be careful. It’s worth it, but it’s heavy. Georgie skips through the whole book to read the parts sectioned off in pink highlighter first before she starts over again to focus. She wants to burn through it in one sitting, but she has to step away and cry often enough that it takes her almost a full week. She reads it alone. Reads it twice.</p><p> </p><p>Edwin’s suicide bites down on her throat and hangs on for days. Jess’ lifelong despair scratches tallies into the curved bones guarding her heart. The old ghost of Butch Al reduces her to <span>sobbing like she hasn’t been able to in so long.</span> The shades of gender in Ruth’s voice make her wonder and want for something she can’t articulate.</p><p> </p><p>It’s heavy, but it’s worth it.</p><p> </p><p>Georgie thought she knew what yearning was. It turns out all she knew were loose synonyms, the basic dictionary definition. She’s always known what it was like to want things. Companionship, support. Love has never been a foreign language. It’s not as if she’s been without. She’s been sure of what all of these things are, but now it’s like— </p><p> </p><p>It’s like a hammer has been brought down on her heart and cracked it wide open. It’s like holding the pieces in her own hands and realizing in awe that she’d been pumping blood through a geode her entire life. That something so beautiful could really be living inside of her. That she can’t put it back together again now that she’s seen it for what it really is. That she doesn’t want to. Not for anything.</p><p> </p><p>It’s the whole sky breaking apart and letting down a mess of <em> hope </em>like rain, rain, rain. It’s someone she’ll never meet asking her to come home. It’s wanting to be there already, but still not quite knowing where it is.</p><p> </p><p>It’s wondering then if she’s just a chameleon. If she’s emulating something she can never <em> really </em> be, changing colors to suit a crowd that she’d never quite fit into. She thinks about a world where someone tries to tell her <em> no </em> and a miserable pressure builds in her throat. Raw desperation. Inexplicable sorrow. A deep desire for approval. A private vow to spend every moment earning it, somehow. Someway. Someday.</p><p> </p><p>Georgie thinks about what yearning means now when it starts storming outside her window when thunder rolls through the room and Jon is pressed quietly up against her back. She would turn around and kiss his shoulder if she wasn’t sure that he’d just wake up. He sleeps so lightly, like his very subconscious is too nervous to turn the lights all the way off in his head. She’s seen the worry lines on his forehead as he dreams. It had always done something to her heart that she’d never been able to explain to herself. Something sprawled and tangled between love and sadness, tension and determination, fire and balm.</p><p> </p><p>It makes more sense now. There’s a word for it.</p><p> </p><p>───── ⋅☀⋅ ─────</p><p> </p><p>Alma Xia is almost too beautiful. The sort of beauty you think most people don’t have the energy to chase and maintain. She curls her hair and pins it up like she’s shooting a movie overseas, not walking to the dining hall for a crappy lunch. Georgie’s never seen her with a chipped nail. Not an eyelash out of place. It’s like she jumped out of some classic photograph to start existing in the modern world on an adventurous whim, except Georgie knows she puts a ton of effort into looking how she does. She has her way of feeling good about herself. She emulates people, too.</p><p> </p><p>Alma walks with her forefinger hooked on Leo’s belt loop, just under the hem of her jacket at the small of her back. They’ve been together almost three years, and they talk about marriage like they’ve already signed the papers. Georgie watches them with admiration that she thinks might be kind of silly; the “butch mentor myth” is exactly that, and there’s no need to venerate bar culture or try to relive it. This isn’t the old days. They’re not even in America.</p><p> </p><p>But that’s not what Leo and Alma are doing by loving each other the way they do. They’ve just found home in words that wrap them up neatly, and they find ways to show it that tell other people loud and clear what their spirits are made of. Georgie respects it too much to judge herself for watching them so closely.</p><p> </p><p>“I just don’t know if I can pull it off.” Georgie wiggles her foot where she’s braced it on the bench across from her, careful not to kick Leo’s bag. “Body type and all that. Even before, I never looked quite right in them.”</p><p> </p><p>“Because that was someone else wearing them before.” Leo’s arms are stretched out along the back of her bench. “It’ll be different now that you’ve got tits, too. Come on, I can bring you to where I got my first one. They’ll fit it for you.”</p><p> </p><p>“I think you mean <em> I’ll </em> be bringing you <em> both </em> there.” Alma drums her nails on the table, quick and impatient. “I have an eye for great ties. I’ll fix you right up, Georgie, and that interview is going to turn into them <em> begging </em> you to work for them.”</p><p> </p><p>Georgie laughs. “What, because I look so hot in a suit?”</p><p> </p><p>Alma’s eyes narrow, earnest. “Because you know who you are.”</p><p> </p><p>Leo shrugs. “And you’ll look hot in the suit.”</p><p> </p><p>───── ⋅☀⋅ ─────</p><p> </p><p>Jon gives her one of his spare kippot to pin over her braids before they go to temple for Yom Kippur. She has no idea where her own are anymore. Lost in old boxes in her father’s basement, maybe. Hidden away with photographs from her bar mitzvah that she hesitated to take off of the mantle. Jon still wears his, but the pale pink clips he uses to keep it stable have a faint glitter to them.</p><p> </p><p>It’s been a long time since either of them observed a holiday with any sense of strictness, but it feels right this year. It’s as good a time as any to enter a synagogue as someone new, he tells her. A clean slate. When she realizes that no one is looking at her sideways, she decides she’ll have to buy a new one for herself. She should start coming to temple more often. It feels different now.</p><p> </p><p>Atonement is intended to be spoken. She and Jon don’t share everything they’re to atone for, but they agree on one thing together. To consider acts of wrong against themselves. They owe themselves apologies for the things they had spent so long denying. It’s all about spiritual wellness, really. Jon suggests that they deserve forgiveness for it. </p><p> </p><p>So Georgie makes him drink water when he sways three-quarters of the way through the fast. Reminds him of <em> pikuach nefesh. </em>Putting your body at risk isn’t how you heal your soul.</p><p> </p><p>They’ve been fasting for so long already. It’s time to break it.</p><p> </p><p>───── ⋅☀⋅ ─────</p><p> </p><p>Georgie keeps her back to the mirror in the dressing room. Alma’s suggested pieces hang on hooks in front of her, sans the tie. That was to be a surprise, apparently. The pins and needles don’t come off with the rest of her clothes, rather dig harder into her skin as she exchanges them slowly for something she wishes she’d had the courage to wear to her secondary school graduation.</p><p> </p><p>As she steps into a pair of stiff navy trousers, Georgie thinks now’s as good a time as any to do some self-reflecting. Not like she hasn’t been doing various forms of it since she met Leo, but this is probably a pivotal moment. Something like that, like in all the stories.</p><p> </p><p>How long has she been this way? How long was it obvious to everyone but her?</p><p> </p><p>She remembers playing house with her childhood best friend when she was seven and being assigned to play the dad. There was something off about it, but it didn’t feel all-the-way-wrong.</p><p> </p><p>She remembers the first girl she’d fallen in love with when she was fourteen, holding her during the sad movie they put on during a sleepover that almost didn’t happen. Felicity’s parents were skeptical, but if Georgie inherited anything from her own, it was their communication skills. No one blinks twice at a sleepover between girls, and they had never had a son.</p><p> </p><p>But they didn’t quite have the quintessential daughter, either. Little pieces of <em> It’s-Georgina-Now </em> fell away bit by bit, with every day she just didn’t <em> feel </em>like shaving or sitting with her ankles crossed like a lady or waste her time getting a manicure she couldn’t afford to keep up with anyway. It never felt right; it always felt like it stopped her hands from doing whatever they were meant to do instead.</p><p> </p><p>She remembers every smug little teenage prat that ever looked at her like she wasn’t a <em> conquest </em> but rather <em> the competition, </em> and realizes now that she’d taken pride in that much even if it meant they might be seeing her sideways. Because she knew that if it <em> was </em> a competition, she was winning: she would rather be the person a crying girl might run <em> to, </em>not from.</p><p> </p><p>Georgie connects the dots between her instincts and what they mean, between the way she walks and where she’s going. The music in heavy soles and a ring of keys bouncing off her thigh, the metronome she’d been missing. She examines her love for other people and it has an entire universe that knows what to call it. She thinks about Jon, who doesn’t entirely know who he is yet and that’s okay. It doesn’t matter. He’s a <em> person </em> that she can be <em> safe </em>for, and that’s all it takes. She thinks about her feelings for him and they don’t dismantle or disprove anything that she’s learning about herself.</p><p> </p><p>She doesn’t turn to face the mirror before stepping back out. Alma whirls around (had she been pacing?) and gasps into her hands before melting into such visible adoration that Georgie goes a bit lightheaded. Leo’s smile is July-bright over Alma’s shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>The tie Alma chose is gorgeous. A deep blue with white buds and golden leaves all twisted around each other, climbing and reaching and blooming and brave. Alma lifts Georgie’s collar and loops the tie around her neck herself, expert hands soft as she buttons the jacket and smooths it down over Georgie’s chest. The quick brush of rounded nails over the baby hairs between her braids tells Georgie that it’s a good thing she decided against taking them out before this. She doesn’t regret anything.</p><p> </p><p>Georgie allows herself to be turned around to face the series of mirrors at the end of the hall of fitting rooms. She doesn’t know what she had been expecting, but it wasn’t for the wind to be knocked straight out of her. Alma leaves her hands on her back, drops her chin over her shoulder to meet eyes with her reflection.</p><p> </p><p>“There you are. How’s it feel?”</p><p> </p><p>Georgie doesn’t have much of an answer. She opens her mouth to speak and a strangled laugh comes out instead. It takes another try to get out the truth.</p><p> </p><p>“Feels right. I, um… Thank you, guys. For helping me out.”</p><p> </p><p>“Feel confident in the word yet?” Leo jams her hands into her pockets, head tipped. “In this moment right here, do you feel any more like you deserve it? Don’t think. Just say.”</p><p> </p><p>Georgie forces herself not to think. Out comes her <em> yes </em> like she could have been saying it all along. Like she should have, and she’s been foolish for dancing around it. Holding herself back from something she’s always had a right to. And now that she’s said yes, maybe she can say the word. She makes eye contact with Leo in the mirror, raises a brow. It feels like she may never stop smiling.</p><p> </p><p>“I mean, it’d be pretty hard <em> not </em>to flag me as butch in this getup, wouldn’t it?”</p><p> </p><p>Leo beams. Alma steps around to reach for the knot of Georgie’s tie and give it a tug. From there she pulls Georgie into her arms, presses a ruby kiss to her cheek that feels like it fizzes even after she pulls away to say a string of words that Georgie thinks describes the way this feels better than anything she could have thought up herself.</p><p> </p><p>“Welcome to the love letter, baby.”</p><p> </p><p>───── ⋅☀⋅ ─────</p><p> </p><p>When she and Jon part ways, it isn’t because she’s started to change too much. It just gives her some more opportunities to get to know herself all over again. </p><p> </p><p>He couldn’t keep using the anxious spark in him to restart her heart every time it goes cold in her chest, and she didn’t <em> have </em>the heart to keep asking him to. Not when she knows that she is just as heavy as all the things she tries to carry, too, and not in the same way she’d always insisted on carrying all the grocery bags in at once so he didn’t have to lift a finger. A way that didn’t just strain the muscles in her arms but the way they shared a bed — some nights clinging on for dear life, some nights as far apart as they could possibly get.</p><p> </p><p>Georgie could <em> feel </em>the way he wanted to roll over and crawl into her arms sometimes, just from the way his scapulae pulled taut under the nightshirt she let him steal from her. Those were the nights she would try to will herself to roll over first, but couldn’t move. She would lie awake and wonder where all that butch strength goes when everything starts smelling like formaldehyde and words with no breath behind them and silence. She couldn’t find joy in the thought of brushing bare skin with him under the covers while she couldn’t feel her own legs. </p><p> </p><p>Jon had opened up his curtains to let her in and she loved him as warmly as she could, but there are rooms in him that she just can’t reach. He hides in them and then rushes out just when she’s setting, with no way to stop herself. It’s been striking her like a mallet lately that for all that he makes her feel handsome, he doesn’t make her feel finished. </p><p> </p><p>Her parents had shown her firsthand that loving someone isn’t always enough to justify fighting to stay together, and that it’s alright to step back if you’re not growing together. You can still keep love in the shape of friendship and memory. Letting go is a part of living.</p><p> </p><p>Georgie starts over.</p><p> </p><p>───── ⋅☀⋅ ─────</p><p> </p><p>And when he shows up on her doorstep after so long, after they’ve both changed so much, Jon registers the difference. Georgie fixes him a cup of tea and she brings it over to the couch, sits down on the coffee table and rests her elbows on her knees, hands laced in front of her, the slope of her shoulders strong and rounded as she leans forward to inspect him. There’s a sad caution in her eyes, but the strong curve of her jaw is dauntless around <em> “yes, of course you can stay</em>” when he asks her for her help.</p><p> </p><p>Jon relaxes into the couch and Georgie straightens up, slaps her hands on her knees, and sighs. He watches her get up and move around the room, pointing out where things are and continuously chattering to fill the silence. The clink of her keys hanging half-forgotten on her belt loop is a gentle tempo to her words. Her walk is song and dance.</p><p> </p><p>He keeps looking at her braids. They’re longer than she kept them uni, half of them tied up in a complicated knot at the back of her head. The emerald green ends of the ones left loose fall forward over her shoulder when she bends over to give the Admiral a scratch.</p><p> </p><p>Georgie remembers what it takes to put Jon at ease — she has an elephant’s memory for the things that people need — and she’s bringing a stack of spare blankets to the couch by the time he finishes his tea and feels fit to change the subject.</p><p> </p><p>“You look good, Georgie.” It’s so abrupt that he looks bashful about it. When her brows flick up, he laughs and stares back down into his mug. “I-I just mean... you look like <em> yourself</em>.<em>” </em></p><p> </p><p>Georgie straightens up, props her hands on her hips, her head cocked to the side, and smiles. “I feel good, yeah. Correct, you know?”</p><p> </p><p>“Correct, yes, that’s— that’s the word. Confident, too? N-Not that you weren’t before, but— it’s brighter now, I can see it in your whole face. You look… You look happy.”</p><p> </p><p>For just a second, figuring out the reason that Jon is here doesn’t matter so much. Of course it still matters — the worry lines on his forehead are there while he’s awake now. The bags under his eyes are more like suitcases, stuffed full with everything he has left to his name. It isn’t much, apparently, but it looks heavy. He looks heavy, but now Georgie knows she’s got muscle to spare. He must still know that if he’s here of all places. </p><p> </p><p>She’s still someone he feels safe with. <em> Safest </em>with, even, considering how afraid he looks even when he’s trying to be polite, friendly. Something about knowing that sends a burst of pride lancing through her heart, but it’s tinged with something else. Some amount of sorrow, maybe. For having missed whatever caused this. For not being able to stop it before it happened. Something that she knows she doesn’t owe him, but still wishes she had the power to give.</p><p> </p><p>She’s learned a strong response to the pangs of yearning she still gets. To calm herself as much as whoever needs her, to make the very air around them safe. Georgie hopes there’s just enough dayfire in her eyes that he can still see it when she smiles at him with all the fierce warmth of the sun in July.</p><p> </p><p>───── ⋅☀⋅ ─────</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>here's the fanart from over the year!<br/>+ <a href="https://gerrydelano.tumblr.com/post/611251440001892352/">georgie in her suit</a> by @cryptic-corvids!<br/>+ <a href="https://gerrydelano.tumblr.com/post/611688031053873152/">another suit georgie</a> by @mediocreskills!<br/>+ <a href="https://gerrydelano.tumblr.com/post/625389743750938624/">one more</a> by @ruvaensarrel!<br/>+ <a href="https://gerrydelano.tumblr.com/post/623831171145564160/">some what the girlfriends</a> by @vampirecrabs, loosely based on my georgie HC!<br/>+ also <a href="https://gerrydelano.tumblr.com/post/644671229474865153">a moodboard in a promo post</a> by @vampirecrabs</p><p>and here are the installments of my <a href="">hand in hand</a> series, about jon's past relationships, which butch georgie plays a significant role:<br/>+ <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28700640">thick &amp; thin</a>, about jon, georgie, alma and leo running into trouble at a gay bar.<br/>+ <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28798701">bits &amp; pieces</a>, about jon and georgie's breakup.<br/>+ <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28985391">trial &amp; error</a>, about jon's next step after uni where he meets another butch, and it has an impact on him.</p><p>for any new readers, i hope this sheds some light on a few of the emotional intricacies of the butch identity for some people who might not have known much about it, and i hope that to any other butches who read this that i captured something you may have felt at some point in your own journey into the love letter :'-)</p><p>next chapter is what the girlfriends!</p>
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<a name="section0002"><h2>2. moon</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>
  <i>When Georgie walks into the living room to see Melanie on the couch in a forest green button-up, she does a double take before she doubles over with laughter.</i>
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          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>blame this bit on <a href="https://gerrydelano.tumblr.com/post/190544414250/">this post</a>! i had a lot of fun expanding on this.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>───── ⋅☀⋅ ─────</p><p> </p><p>When Georgie walks into the living room to see Melanie on the couch in a big, forest green button-up, she does a double-take before she doubles over with laughter. Melanie jolts and curls into herself in shock before swinging her legs off the couch in demand, her bare feet pressing hard into the carpet. G-d, and she’s not even wearing anything underneath. It could be sexy in that charming, domestic way if it wasn’t so <em> funny. </em></p><p> </p><p>“What!” Melanie slaps her hands down on the cushions beside her, enormously unthreatening in all its softness. “You tell me why you’re laughing at me, Georgie, I swear—”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not laughing at you,” Georgie tries. “Okay. No, I’m laughing at you, b-but it’s because—”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, keep at it.” Melanie feels around on the couch for her phone, thumbing the home button. “I’ll just ask Google if you can sprain a <em> lung.” </em></p><p> </p><p>Georgie needs to shamble to the fridge for a sip of whatever’s on the nearest door bin before she can explain that Melanie is wearing Jon’s shirt without bursting into hysterics. She only laughs harder at the look that crosses Melanie’s face. It’s like she’s been slapped with a live fish. She looks moments away from ripping the damn thing off before she seems to remember that it’s the only thing she’s got on. Her face goes pink, a squiggly sort of frown twisting her pretty mouth.</p><p> </p><p>“I… just grabbed the softest thing out of your closet.” She mutters, embarrassed now. “Not really like I can tell what from what.”</p><p> </p><p>Georgie softens. “I know, sweets. I’m sorry. You know you’re welcome to everything I’ve got in there. I just wasn’t expecting you to land on <em> that </em>one.”</p><p> </p><p>“Why do you still have something of his?” Melanie crosses her arms. “Isn’t that sort of weird?”</p><p> </p><p>“In this case, I think I’m entitled.” Georgie brings the bottle of orange juice that had just saved her life over to the couch. “It wasn’t his for all that long. Was technically always meant for me.”</p><p> </p><p>“So you just told me it was his to get a <em> reaction </em>out of me?”</p><p> </p><p>“And you really gave it hell, too.”</p><p> </p><p>Melanie swings out a hand to swat her arm. Georgie touches the corner of the bottle to her knee to let her know she’d brought over a drink, and she feels around with her fingertips for the neck of it to take it for herself. Georgie reaches out to fiddle with the hem of the shirt where it lays over Melanie’s thigh, knuckles skimming the smooth skin between scattered teenage scars. Melanie squints like she’s contemplating swatting at her hand, too. She touches around to find the back of it instead.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, if there’s a story, you’re free to tell it.”</p><p> </p><p>Georgie scoffs. “You want to hear me get all warm and fuzzy over my ex-boyfriend Jonathan Sims, who you can’t stand?”</p><p> </p><p>“Not really. But if it made you laugh that hard, it’s got to be something good.”</p><p> </p><p>“It was something good. He pretended he’d bought it for himself back when I was experimenting with masculine clothes again, but he’d gotten it in my size. Just wore it around waiting for me to notice it.” Georgie can’t help smiling, her nose scrunching with old delight. “Over these cute little tights, flouncing around my kitchen.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, my G-d.”</p><p> </p><p>“I know.”</p><p> </p><p>“Bet he looked like a stick figure with hair.”</p><p> </p><p>Georgie laughs. She takes the orange juice bottle when Melanie empties it and sets it on the coffee table in front of her. When she leans back, Melanie tips over to tuck herself into the circle of her open arms.</p><p> </p><p>“He helped me so much back then,” Georgie says. “He has this… roundabout way of supporting people. Like he expects you to figure it out yourself that that’s what he’s up to. Not everybody’s got the energy to play along with all that, but it could be sort of special sometimes.”</p><p> </p><p>Melanie scoffs, and mumbles, “Yeah. Roundabout sounds right.”</p><p> </p><p>Georgie gives her a squeeze. Won’t delve into it unless Melanie does first. Better to wrap this up quickly. It’s awful, actually. It’s usually <em> Georgie </em>who goes out of her way to avoid the topic of Jon being brought up after what happened. Melanie’s been softer about it than Georgie finds herself able to be most of the time. Honestly, she’s shocked at her own lack of forethought. She’s usually so careful about entering rooms with sudden noise, too.</p><p> </p><p>There are just some memories that can’t be ripped up with an awl, it seems. Good things that leave marks, too. Jon had left good marks on her. She still hopes she’d left enough on him to get him through what he’s putting himself through right now. Whatever of it that he can be protected from by something so fragile as sentiment.</p><p> </p><p>Georgie presses her cheek to the top of Melanie’s head and rocks her. Her conditioner smells like cherry blossom and almond. Earthy. Sweet.</p><p> </p><p>It’s been a while since she thought hard about what yearning really means. Melanie curls up, sightless, in her arms and Georgie swallows a sprawling tangle of love and sadness. Remembers the worry lines on Jon’s forehead when he slept back in uni, on her couch, sitting up on the floor slumped over her coffee table. Georgie has brushed Melanie’s hair from her face and seen the very same when she slept, too, both her arms wrapped around one of Georgie’s like her weight in the bed beside her was a life preserver in a cold ocean.</p><p> </p><p>Georgie’s felt protective yearning before. It always feels different with different people, but it always comes from the same place. There’s still a geode in her chest, cracked open and rattling and in love with so very many things. She’s spent years shining it since it first came apart. Keeping it bright. She still sees Leo and Alma, married now and raising a little boy. She still has the suit that convinced her that beautiful words can belong to her honestly, fully, finally.</p><p> </p><p>“You never got around to reading <em> Stone Butch Blues, </em>did you?”</p><p> </p><p>“Mm?” Melanie tips her head up. Her fingers are hooked on Georgie’s collar, tugging the neckline a bit. “No, not properly. Never found the time.” She sighs. “I’m a bad femme.”</p><p> </p><p>Georgie tuts. “You <em> are </em>not. Just a busy one who’s been through a lot.”</p><p> </p><p>Melanie hums again. “Why ask?”</p><p> </p><p>“Just thinking about Jon and the shirt,” Georgie admits. “That’s when Leo gave it to me, I got a bit obsessed with it. I’ve calmed down some since uni, but it still sticks with me. I still think about things through some lens relating back to it, you know? To make sense of things.” </p><p> </p><p>“There an audiobook?”</p><p> </p><p>“I’d love to read it to you myself.” Georgie presses her lips to Melanie’s forehead. No worry lines. “I want you to understand what I mean when I say I think you might be my Ruth.”</p><p> </p><p>The comparison isn’t exact. Melanie’s grasp on womanhood isn’t the same as Ruth’s fight for it, but then, neither is Georgie’s. It’s not just the gender behind it but the music they play in each other’s lives, and at the end of the day it comes down to the sameness in their differences. The coin they each occupy one side of. The way they sign their love letters.</p><p> </p><p>Georgie’s gone on about the book before, of course, but it feels like a thousand years have passed since. Melanie has read <em> Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold </em> and <em> S/He, </em> so it’s not like she’s never heard of it. She always listened when Georgie went on about it, cheek in hand, absorbing what it meant to her, but Georgie wouldn’t blame her for not retaining every little detail. Priorities. Pains.</p><p> </p><p>Melanie fits her head against Georgie’s neck. “Remind me again what it’s all about.”</p><p> </p><p>Georgie lets out a deep breath. Ponders the poetry of it before she answers.</p><p> </p><p>“When I love somebody, it tends to stick. Doesn’t just turn off when they turn out on me, I tend to keep it. Not in any way you should feel threatened by, mind you. I mean like how I still love my friend Leo, even if really I only see her and Alma when Santi needs a babysitter. It’s this big theme in the book. The main character is just touched by a <em> lot </em>of people. Loves them all different, and it all makes a difference. I really feel that.”</p><p> </p><p>A gushing sigh. Not so troubled as it is theatric. Safe. “This your way of telling me you still love your ex?”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m always gonna love how he changed me. And I love <em> you </em> enough to tell him to get the hell out. Take that as you will.”</p><p> </p><p>She hears Melanie’s quiet snicker up against the side of her neck. It’s a little muted, not quite with guilt, but something. There’s always going to be something, and Georgie will be ready.</p><p> </p><p>“So, which one’s Ruth again?”</p><p> </p><p>Georgie pulls back. When Melanie lifts her head, she catches the edge of her jaw with her fingertips. A warning before she tips her chin forward to meet her mouth to mouth.</p><p> </p><p>“The soft epilogue.” Georgie kisses her again, and again. “The great love that opens up a new beginning.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, I see.” Melanie kisses her again, and again. “How soon can you start reading?”</p><p> </p><p>“As soon as I can stand to let go of you.”</p><p> </p><p>“That could take a while.” Melanie only cuddles closer, stubborn. “I might not let you up.”</p><p> </p><p>“Fine. Then as soon as I can brace myself for the full sight of you in this shirt from across the room. I’m not sure I’m strong enough now that you’ve taken all my OJ.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, I’ll <em> kill you.” </em></p><p> </p><p>“Always did dream of dying in the arms of a beautiful woman.”</p><p> </p><p>The precise laugh she’d wanted, flustered and boundless. “You’re really testing me, Georgie, I swear to—”</p><p> </p><p>Another kiss turns the threat back into happy sounds and a sigh. Melanie’s shoulders lose their tension under Georgie’s hands as easily as her loose curls are tucked behind her ear. She’s so soft, under all that anger. And not just for Georgie, either. It’s in the way she talks about missing her little sister, her parents, old friends she hasn’t seen since her life took its sharpest left yet. Melanie has people she wants to be safe for, too. It nearly killed her to see herself in the mirror and realize she hadn’t felt safe with herself in such a long time.</p><p> </p><p>For better or worse, her reflection can’t hurt her like that anymore. Melanie had never been dangerous, not to Georgie, but now she’s a little better protected, too.</p><p> </p><p>Georgie thinks about the sort of trust it takes to be vulnerable in front of someone. In their house, in their bed, in their arms. There’s a deep honour in being chosen that quells the thunder pang of yearning.</p><p> </p><p>Like the day before, and the day before that, Georgie renews her private vow to spend every moment earning it. It’s moments like this that she’s sure she has it in her.</p><p> </p><p>───── ⋅☀⋅ ─────</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>and there you have it! i am gay.</p><p>the response to this fic over the past year has been so overwhelming; i am still so blown away by <a href="https://gerrydelano.tumblr.com/tagged/love-letter-tag">the amount of people that have come to tell me that this helped them to realize things about themselves and their identities that they hadn't even had exposure to yet</a>. thank you <i>so</i> much, and i'm so glad that i could have given you even the tiniest little nudge in whatever direction makes you feel at peace with yourself.</p><p>one more thanks to seraf for the trans georgie addition! PLEASE check out his butch4butch WTGFS fic, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30131847/chapters/74225529">the north of my heart's compass</a>! his HCs are so thoughtful and beautifully addressed, and even though i write my melanie as femme, i have the utmost respect and love for how he translates her into the butch role. if you liked this, you'll like that!</p><p>and again, anyone thinking of reading <i>stone butch blues</i> because of this — <a href="https://www.lesliefeinberg.net/">which you can find as a free PDF here!</a> — it's like leo said: be careful. know what you're getting into!</p><p>[<a href="http://gerrydelano.tumblr.com/">my tumblr</a>] | [<a href="https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/14KlgPfOb16ocGj8k0QrElw6UY0SqoNeH2yTj_zQ31bA/edit#"> GTCU masterpost</a>]</p>
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